Finnish troops passing by the remains of a destroyed Soviet T-34 at the
battle of Tali-Ihantala.
Finnish, German, and Soviet troops at the start of the Continuation War in June/July 1941. The Germans began their assault on 29 June from Petsamo area, and the Finns attacked on 1 July from Suomussalmi and Kuusamo area.
Renewal of warfare between Finland and the Soviet Union,
also called the Continuation War. The fighting occurred mainly northwest and
northeast of the Soviet city of Leningrad.
Finland's rejection of Soviet demands for territory and
bases to protect access to Leningrad-including the cession of Viipuri (Vyborg),
Finland's second-largest city, and the surrounding Karelian Isthmus-led to the
first Finnish- Soviet War, known as the Winter War. The war began in November
1939, and although the Finns fought well, the odds against them were hopeless.
In March 1940, Finland was obliged to sue for peace, in which it had to cede
even more territory that the Soviets had originally demanded.
Fearing additional Soviet demands and resenting Soviet
interference in its policies, Finland aligned itself with Germany. In fall
1940, chief of the Finnish General Staff Lieutenant General Erik Heinrichs held
talks in Berlin with German leaders, who requested Finnish assistance during
Operation BARBAROSSA, the planned German invasion of the Soviet Union (chiefly
of Leningrad and Murmansk). The Finnish government welcomed this as an
opportunity to recover territory lost to the Soviet Union in the Winter War. As
planning progressed, the Germans and Finns agreed that German forces would
secure the nickel-rich Petsamo region and attack Murmansk in the far north,
while the Finns would be responsible for operations in the southeast toward
Leningrad and Soviet Karelia, centered around Petrozavodsk. General Carl
Mannerheim (he was raised to field marshal in 1942) commanded the Finnish
forces, as he had in the Winter War of 1939-1940. Mannerheim had 16 divisions:
11 along the frontiers, 1 opposite the Russian base at Hanko, and 4 in reserve.
On 22 June 1941, the Germans launched their massive invasion
of the Soviet Union. Finland had already secretly mobilized its forces and
declared war on 25 June, but as a cobelligerent of Germany rather than as an
ally. The German drive in the far north from Petsamo eastward fell short of
both Murmansk and the large Soviet naval base at Polyarny. German forces also
had little luck driving east from the northern city of Rovaniemi, failing to
cut the Soviet rail line running from Murmansk south along the White Sea coast.
In the south, however, the Finns made much better progress. Preoccupied with
the massive German onslaught, Red Army forces north of Leningrad were
outnumbered.
General Mannerheim divided his forces into two armies: one
drove down the Karelian Isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga,
and the other marched southeast between Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega toward the
Svir River to take Petrozavodsk, capital of Karelia. On 29 June, the Finnish
Karelian Army (II, IV, VI, and VII Corps) attacked to the west and east of Lake
Ladoga, crossing the Russo-Finnish border of 1940, recapturing Finnish Karelia,
and driving on toward Leningrad. Aided by German contingents, Army Group
Mannerheim attacked Soviet Karelia. Farther north, combined Finnish and German
forces recaptured lost Finnish territory around Salla while the German mountain
troops, coming from Norway, reached as far as the Litsa River on their drive
toward Murmansk.
The Finns had originally planned to unite their troops with
German Army Group North around Leningrad. On 1 September, the Finns reached the
old Russo-Finnish border. Despite heavy fighting, the Soviets were able to
withdraw, but by late August the Finns had recovered all territory lost to the
Soviet Union in the Winter War. The Finnish attacks stalled north of Lake
Ladoga in September.
Although the Finns were not eager to take non-Finnish land,
they did advance somewhat beyond the pre- November 1939 borders for defensive
purposes. Much to Germany's displeasure, however, they refused to cooperate
with German troops against the city of Leningrad. Finnish and German commanders
disliked each other, and the German air force failed to provide as much air
cover as had been promised. German troops did not perform well in the northern
part of the front. In the dense forests and swamps that marked the terrain in
the north, tanks, heavy artillery, and aircraft were often ineffective. Finnish
casualties were not light, and Finland had a small population and insufficient
resources for a long war. Given these points, the Finns only undertook those
operations that suited them, and that did not include Leningrad. The Finns were
nonetheless disappointed that the German army was unable to secure a rapid
defeat of the Soviet Union.
After capturing Petrozavodsk and Medweschjegorsk on the
western and northern shore of Lake Onega, in December the Finns established a
defensive position somewhat inside Soviet territory and about 20 miles from
Leningrad. Had the Finns advanced farther, Leningrad would probably have fallen
to the Germans, with uncertain consequences for the fighting on the Eastern
Front. The Finnish Front remained largely static from early 1942. Despite some
Soviet counterattacks toward Petsamo, the battle lines changed very little in
the months to follow.
At this point, in August 1942, Moscow offered the Finns
extensive territorial concessions in return for a separate peace, but the
Finns, confident of an ultimate German victory, refused. In September 1941,
London and Washington made it clear to Helsinki that any Finnish effort to
advance beyond its prewar frontiers would mean war. Indeed, Britain declared
war on Finland in December 1941.
As the war continued into 1942 and then 1943, the Finns lost
enthusiasm for the struggle, especially when German military fortunes changed.
In January 1944, a Soviet offensive south of Leningrad broke the blockade of
that city. With the tide fast turning against Germany, the Finns asked the
Soviets for peace terms, but the response was so harsh that Finland rejected
it. Not only would Finland have to surrender all its territorial gains, but it
would have to pay a large indemnity.
Soviet leader Josef Stalin then decided to drive Finland
from the war. The Soviets assembled some 45 divisions with about half a million
men, more than 800 tanks, and some 2,000 aircraft. Using these assets, in June
1944 the Soviets began an advance into Finland on both flanks of Lake Ladoga on
the relatively narrow Karelian and Leningrad Fronts. While the Finns were well
entrenched along three defensive lines, they could not withstand the Soviet onslaught.
Viipuri fell on 20 June after less stubborn resistance than during the Winter
War. Heavy fighting also occurred in eastern Karelia. Although they failed to
achieve a breakthrough, Soviet forces caused the Finns to retreat and took the
Murmansk Railway.
After the fall of Viipuri, the Finnish government requested
German assistance. The Germans furnished dive-bombers, artillery, and then some
troops, but it demanded in return that Finland ally itself firmly with Germany
and promise not to conclude a separate peace. President Risto Ryti, who had
been forced to provide a letter to that effect to German Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop (which bound him, but not his country, to such a
policy), resigned on 1 August in favor of Marshal Mannerheim.
On 25 August, Helsinki asked for terms. Moscow agreed to a
cease-fire to take effect on 4 September, but Soviet forces actually fought on
for another day after that. One of the ceasefire terms was that the Finns
should break diplomatic relations with Berlin and order all German troops from
Finnish soil by 15 September. German leader Adolf Hitler refused the Finnish
request for an orderly departure of his forces and ordered German troops in
northern Finland to resist expulsion and, if forced to retreat, to lay waste to
the countryside. The German troops followed this order to the letter. Because
there were 200,000 Germans in Finland, the damage to Lapland, where they were
located, was considerable. During October, the Russian Fourteenth Army threw
back German forces at Liza, supported by a large amphibious landing near
Petsamo, and by the end of the month the Germans had withdrawn completely into
Norway.
The war ended for Finland on 15 October 1944. The
Continuation War cost Finland some 200,000 casualties (55,000 dead)-a
catastrophic figure for a nation of fewer than 4 million people. Finland also
had to absorb 200,000 refugees. Finland agreed to withdraw its forces back to
the 1940 frontiers, placed its military on a peacetime footing within two and
one-half months, granted a 50-year lease of the Porkkala District, allowed the
Soviets access to ports and airfields in southern Finland, and provided the
Soviet Union use of the Finnish merchant navy while the war continued in
Europe. Finland also paid reparations of US$300 million in gold over a six-year
period. Stalin did refrain from absorbing the entire country, but in the coming
decades Western-oriented democratic Finland was obliged to follow policies that
would not alienate the Soviet Union.
References
Lundin, C. Leonard. Finland in the Second World War. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1957. Vehviläinen, Olli. Finland in the Second World War. New
York: Palgrave, 2002. Wuorinen, J. H. Finland and World War II, 1939-1944. New
York: Ronald Press, 1948.
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